That the impact of traffic accidents on public health can be considerable was shown in a previous report by the Traffic Policy Research Centre (Lammar & Hens, 2003). In this study further attention is given to this impact. Because it is important that not only technical-medical factors are considered, a measurement of the subjective quality of life will be used: a global judgement about the quality of life taking physical, psychological and social aspects into account. Not only the short term consequences are important, the long term consequences are just as important. It is decided to select whiplash patients as the population of interest in this study. Whiplash injuries are considered as injuries with a primarily low severity grade. However, previous research has shown that these patients can have severe and invalidating complaints, in many cases persisting after several months or years. The term whiplash is used in different contexts with different meanings. The definitions used in this study are: 1. Whiplash event is an event leading to a whiplash injury (often at the occasion of a head-to-tail traffic accident) 2. Whiplash refers to the pathophysiological mechanism leading to the whiplash injury. 3. The Whiplash injury refers to an injury to the neck (for example a sprain or a strain of the neck). 4. WAD (whiplash associated disorders) refers to the symptoms as a consequence of the whiplash injury. (Author/publisher) The report is available at: http://www.steunpuntmowverkeersveiligheid.be/nl/node/333
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